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June 8, 2025
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
BROOKLYN, Mich. — Thirteen years after Dodge left NASCAR racing on the heels of a NASCAR Cup championship with Team Penske, the Ram brand is returning to the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series in 2026.
The “how” and “with whom” are still to be determined, but Ram brand CEO Tim Kuniskis promised that Ram trucks will be on the track at Daytona International Speedway for the series’ season opener.
“We’re going racing, and we’re going to be in Daytona, but we don’t really know how or what, how we’re going to do that yet,” Kuniskis said Sunday morning at a media breakfast before the formal 1 p.m. announcement on the Michigan International Speedway frontstretch.
“You know, it’s like the kid going to the prom. I’ve got the tux, got my dad’s car. Just don’t know who the date is going to be yet, but we’ll get there.”
With the truck maker expected to field at least four vehicles at Daytona, Kuniskis indicated all three of the following options are on the table: signing an existing team to run Ram trucks, working with new ownership in the series, or fielding a factory team.
Ram Trucks and Dodge are divisions of Stellantis North America (previously Chrysler Group LLC). Kuniskis hopes the return of Ram to the Truck Series will be a precursor to Dodge’s eventual reappearance in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Sunday’s announcement comes three days after Kuniskis revealed the resurrection of the popular Hemi engine as an option in Ram trucks.
“The Hemi’s back… so we figured we might as well go back to racing, might as well go back to American motorsports, back to NASCAR,” Kuniskis said in a backgrounder with media earlier in the week. “First with Truck, with the intention to go to Cup after that.”
NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer John Probst said the sanctioning body would consider expanding the current Truck Series field size from the current 36, if necessary to accommodate the Ram entries.
NASCAR is welcoming a manufacturer to one of its top three national series for the first time since 2004.
“We are excited to welcome Ram back to the Truck Series starting in 2026,” Probst said. “This is something that we have been talking about for a long time, and it’s something that we don’t get to do very often. I think the last time we did this was over 20 years ago when Toyota entered our sport.
“So, this is something that’s a big moment for our entire sport and our existing competitors, potential new competitors, OEMs. It’s certainly something that, when we work with our existing OEMs, they have made it loud and clear that they would welcome a new OEM into our sport with open arms.
“They have been very helpful in that process with Ram and even some of the other OEMs that we continue to talk with… We’re excited to see the depth in the Truck garage grow even deeper… It’s pretty clear from their early pressers that they’re going to come in and do this fairly different from the recent trend in the Truck Series.”
The first manifestation of the difference involves a new emblem.
“So, you’ll see right below us is our new logo for the Hemi,” Kuniskis said. “We call it the symbol of protest. It’s our Hemi engine with the RAM head on the front of it, and we turned it into a mechanical bull.
“That’s just a taste. It’s just a taste of what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it. Completely different.”
In fact, after Sunday morning’s press availability, Kuniskis rode a full-sized “Hemi bull” in the Michigan Fan Zone and managed to stay up for more than eight seconds before the bull threw him.
Kuniskis acknowledged that finding Ram’s “date to the prom” is a pressing priority.
“Timing is very, very, very quick,” he said. “We need to get going. I’m hoping some of you guys (media) rile some things up, and we get some people asking us to the dance.”
Dodge exited the NASCAR Cup Series after Brad Keselowski won the championship in 2012, and Team Penske announced a switch from Dodge to Ford.
“It’s funny,” Kuniskis said. “We left, what was it 13 years ago? And it’s bothered me ever since. At the time, I was specifically just on Dodge when we left Cup. And it’s always bothered me. We’ve always been looking for a way to get back. It took us a long time to find the absolute right time.”
The vehicle Ram will use to “get back” is the Ram 1500 concept truck molded by the Ram design team. It resembles a production truck and features elements from the Ram Sport Truck lineup (Warlock, Rebel and RHO) with enhanced aerodynamics that will allow it to race efficiently and effectively.
Since the Ram brand involves only trucks, any future return to the Cup Series would have to involve the Dodge brand and new engine architecture.
“We’re excited that they have interest in the Cup Series,” Probst said. “If they decide they’re going to go that direction, for us it’s about an 18-month onboarding process, the longest lead time around the submission of the body.
“There will be, obviously, with a new OEM coming in, some work to be done on the engines. So, I’d say that 18-month runway would be pretty typical, but it will be on the OEM to decide the timing in which they’d want to come, but the minimum would be 18 months.”
The immediate plan, however, is to return to the Truck Series, and for that, Kuniskis has a promise.
“We’re going to shake up the sport and really make our presence known,” he said.
